All you need to do to see these sites for yourself is to download Google Earth and then copy and paste the latitude and longitude coordinates above into your Google Earth “fly to” field. Since I’m interested in both the Seven Days and the Petersburg Campaign, I thought I’d find a few sites around Richmond to add to the list.

Malvern Hill: 37°24’44.77″N 77°15’3.47″W

Watt House on Gaines Mill Battlefield: 37°34’25.07″N 77°17’27.14″W

The Crater, Petersburg: 37°13’2.05″N 77°22’43.61″W

Fort Harrison: 37°25’36.36″N 77°22’22.06″W

The Breakthrough, Petersburg: 37°11’50.78″N 77°26’59.46″W

Feel free to add a few sites of your own in the comments section below!

UPDATE: Jim Beeghley hastwo very detailed posts up at Teaching the Civil War with Technology from last December. Go check them out!

Brett,
Much of the feedback I get at Historical Marker Database references the similar use of the Google APIs to display the locations of historical markers. Our web developer/site owner has done a masterful job in the presentation (but of course I am a little biased!) .

There is a way to export the marker location definitions to Google earth. Importing the appropriate file into Google earth, all the selected marker entries show up on the map.

Or you can do it without downloading Google Earth, just by calling up the map views and toggling to hybrid mode. As we always include a photo of the marker, and most often add photos of the marker’s topic, you’ve got the “poor man’s” version of the Google Earth display, for those bandwidth challenged browsers.

Thats all I do on rainy days is pore over Google Earth on CW sites. Just last night I was checking out Wilson’s Creek and Chicwamogwai. Bull Run is cool too. you can see straight down into the Henry House and also the way the modern turnpike tracks roughly with the Warrenton TP back in the day. the stone bridge is cool too, off of the modern highway just a bit.

WC: 37/06/52/ N, 93/25/00 W
Stone Bridge: 38/49/27 N, 77/30/12 W
the coolest thing about the stone bridge is that you can see two people walking from the parking lot to the bridge. From SPACE! Why is that cool? I dunno, it just is.

Burnside’s bridge, Antietam: 39/27/02 N, 77/43/55 W. Interesting how the Stone Bridge and Burnside’s bridge are both West Longitude 77.

Shiloh however, suffers from a lack of resolution. the Panaramio pix are great (I have Pitts Landing as my desktop wallpaper) but the reso doesnt go down far enough.

Chickamauga visitor’s center: 34/56/24 N, 85/15/35 W

Also interesting is Chattanooga, where unfortunately there are now houses all over around and through the Cracker Line. For that matter theres houses all over Lookout Mtn.

Stone’s River NMBP is surrounded on all sides by industry and residentia lareas. Let’s hope there’s some preservation-minded folks back there: 35/52/49 N, 86/26/04 W.

Ft. Sumter, you can swee rats running around on the grounds its so clear: 32/45/08 N, 79/52/28 W.